Columbia City Council, School Board elections Tuesday

COLUMBIA — City Council contests and school board races in Columbia, Hallsville and Southern Boone County will be the major issues driving voters to the polls for Tuesday's municipal election, Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren said.

Noren declined to offer a projection for how many Boone County voters will cast ballots Tuesday. She said there are 122,000 registered voters in the county; 98,500 are considered active voters. Inactive voters are those who remain on the rolls but are unlikely to cast ballots, in many cases because they've moved out of the county.

About 17 percent of 91,000 active voters cast ballots in the 2011 municipal election. In 2010, Columbia voters were electing a new mayor and two ward representatives to the City Council. That year about 27 percent of 94,000 active voters cast ballots.

City Council

Five candidates are running for two seats on the City Council. Council members serve three-year terms, and the winners are scheduled to be sworn in at a special meeting next Monday. The candidates are:

A proposed $50 million bond issue that would raise money for the construction of new elementary schools and renovation of existing facilities. For the bond to pass, 57 percent of voter approval is required.